Excerpt from Jyothi Bhave’s BLOG : Read Full Article / Visit her blog
My gardening efforts took off in 2000 when I shifted to ground floor flat with a small empty patch by the side of my flat. Wanting to be a true gardener first i bought all the tools and started digging the land. Planted few flowering plants like Anant, Jaswandi, Sonchafa Sadafuli so also Kadipatta and Tulsi. As the days passed I realised that growing plants gave me a feeling of growing children and i started observing them, taking care of them and loving them.
Last year when I tried to grow Bottle gourd, Okra and Palak, for my project, my first attempt to grow vegetables, I realised that I dont know the right way of growing them organically except adding dried cow dung to the red soil. The need to know about organic farming made me surf the net and I came to know about Preeti’s terrace garden. The flowers, fruiting trees and variety of vegetables grown in just 3000 sq ft motivated me to know about her techniques which is Natueco Farming.
After attending 7th June 09 workshop I was eager to make Amrut Mitti myself. For me procuring cow dung, cow urine and biomass was a challenge initially but when there is a will there is a way. I tied up with a lady outside a temple to provide cow dung and cow urine and started picking biomass from the nearest municipal public garden. I also procured two plastic drums one to prepare Amrut jal and second to store heaps of biomass. The only difficult factor for me was to really wait for 100 days to get perfect matured soil
After I made the first heap in July, I could hardly wait for 30 days and planted a drumstick plant in the semi decomposed biomass. After that I must have made the heaps 4/5 times but i dont remember the dates and used it all for my already existing plants like banana, amla, bamboo, sonchafa, arvi, neem, lemon and few more. Amla has already started fruiting and sonchafa has started bearing beautiful flowers (both 3 yrs old). Arvi leaves, my mum-in -law has cooked thrice so far and I have cooked drumstick leaves for one time vegetable and what can I say……its a great feeling to cook and eat home made vegetable. drumstick plant has started flowering in Feb, now I am waiting for fruiting of Banana and lemon tree.
Best Wishes ,
